Abstract
Urban areas are hot spots that drive environmental change at multiple scales. Material demands of production and human consumption alter land use and cover, biodiversity, and hydrosystems locally to regionally, and urban waste discharge affects local to global biogeochemical cycles and climate. For urbanites, however, global environmental changes are swamped by dramatic changes in the local environment. Urban ecology integrates natural and social sciences to study these radically altered local environments and their regional and global effects. Cities themselves present both the problems and solutions to sustainability challenges of an increasingly urbanized world.
Topics

No keywords indexed for this article. Browse by subject →

References
74
[1]
United Nations Population Division World Urbanization Prospects: The 2005 Revision (United Nations New York 2006).
[5]
S. L. Collins et al . “Integrated Science for Society and the Environment: A Strategic Research Initiative” (Miscellaneous Publication of the Long Term Ecological Research Network available at www.lternet.edu/planning/).
[6]
L. R. Brown Eco-Economy: Building an Economy for the Earth (Norton New York 2001).
[7]
C. Folke, A. Jansson, J. Larsson, R. Costanza, Ambio26, 167 (1997).
[9]
Growth, innovation, scaling, and the pace of life in cities

Luís M. A. Bettencourt, José Lobo, Dirk Helbing et al.

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 10.1073/pnas.0610172104
[10]
C. L. Redman, in Human Impact on Ancient Environments, C. L. Redman, Ed. (Univ. of Arizona Press, Tucson, 1999), pp. 127–158.
[12]
J. Fernandez, J. Ind. Ecol.11, 99 (2007).
[18]
T. McGee, in East West Perspectives on 21st Century Urban Development: Sustainable Eastern and Western Cities in the New Millennium, J. Brotchie, P. Newton, P. Hall, J. Dickey, Eds. (Ashgate, Aldershot, UK, 1999), pp. 37–52.
[21]
R. E. Lang A. C. Nelson “Beyond the metroplex: Examining commuter patterns at the “megapolitan” scale” (Working paper of the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy Cambridge MA 2007).
[25]
M. Fischer-Kowalski, J. Ind. Ecol.2, 61 (1998).
[30]
United Nations Development Program Beyond Scarcity: Power Poverty and the Global Water Crisis. Human Development Report 2006 (United Nations New York 2006).
[32]
P. M. Groffman, N. L. Law, K. T. Belt, L. E. Band, G. T. Fisher, Ecosystems (N. Y., Print)7, 393 (2004).
[34]
In 1998 in Arizona 114 × 10 6 m 3 of groundwater was applied to 98 542 ha of fields. If groundwater has a nitrate concentration of 10 mg N/liter this represents 113 kg/ha of N added to fields.
[39]
T. R. Oke, in Applied Climatology: Principles and Practices, A. Perry, R. Thompson, Eds. (Routledge, London, 1997), pp. 273–287.
[40]
K. E. Trenberthet al. in Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change D. Q. S. Solomon M. Manning Z. Chen M. Marquis K. B. Averyt M. Tignor H. L. Miller Eds. (Cambridge Univ. Press Cambridge UK 2007).
[42]
E. G. McPherson, in The Ecological City: Preserving and Restoring Urban Biodiversity R. H. Platt, R. A. Rowntree, P. C. Muick, Eds. (Univ. of Massachusetts Press, Amherst, 1994), pp. 151–171.
[46]
B. Chocat, P. Krebs, J. Marsalek, W. Rauch, W. Schilling, Water Sci. Technol.43, 61 (2001).
[47]
X. M. Bai, P. Shi, Environment48, 22 (2006).

Showing 50 of 74 references

Cited By
5,680
Sustainable Cities and Society
Environmental and Sustainability In...
Environmental Science & Technol...
Sustainable Cities and Society
npj Urban Sustainability
Ecological Indicators
Metrics
5,680
Citations
74
References
Details
Published
Feb 08, 2008
Vol/Issue
319(5864)
Pages
756-760
Authors
Cite This Article
Nancy B. Grimm, Stanley H. Faeth, Nancy E. Golubiewski, et al. (2008). Global Change and the Ecology of Cities. Science, 319(5864), 756-760. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1150195
Related

You May Also Like

Electric Field Effect in Atomically Thin Carbon Films

K. S. Novoselov, A. K. Geim · 2004

61,289 citations

Optimization by Simulated Annealing

S. Kirkpatrick, C. D. Gelatt · 1983

44,123 citations

Emergence of Scaling in Random Networks

Albert-László Barabási, Réka Albert · 1999

35,859 citations

Judgment under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases

Amos Tversky, Daniel Kahneman · 1974

27,432 citations

The Tragedy of the Commons

Garrett Hardin · 1968

22,676 citations